Breaking
by zosimos
Summary: Tobira no Mukou e: Prompt #16 of 50. How things got started.


Nick woke with the most outrageous headache he'd ever had. The pressure was intense, it felt like his brain was trying to squeeze out through his eyes. Takeo was shaking him, and that certainly wasn't helping. Nick groaned and focused on Takeo. "The next time you have a bright idea," he said. "Don't include me."

Takeo's black hair was sticking up at all angles and there was a wild look in his eyes. Relief flashed across his face as Nick shoved Takeo off of him and sat up. "Fuck," Nick groaned, rubbing his forehead as he fought to keep his lunch down. "Did anyone get the plates on that dream sequence?" He looked over at Takeo, who had sat back down on his ass and was staring wordlessly at Nick.

Nick began checking himself over, but couldn't find anything the matter. "What the hell, Takeo, you blow out your voice box or something?" Nick sat back and leaned on his hand, then picked it up as he had put it in something wet.

"It worked," Takeo said finally.

"What worked?" Nick said, looking at his hand. He immediately wished he hadn't, it was covered in blood. Nick scrambled back out of the way, turning around. This wasn't Takeo's bedroom.

Nick looked around frantically. They were in some kind of basement. The ground and walls were cement, and now that the smoke was starting to clear there were rickety metal shelves filled with books and binders and all sorts of paraphernalia. There were high-set windows in the walls that were full of dim light, it was mid afternoon. Several of the bookshelves were tilted at a crazy angle and there was glass on the ground.

Takeo was still staring at the thing that was just past Nick. There was a person, doubled over with their face pressed to the ground. This was the source of the blood that Nick had put his hand in. Nick got up on his knees and put his hand on the guy's shoulder. "Hey, mister-"

The body toppled over, eyes rolled up and sightless. Blood was pouring from the man's mouth, it reduced to a trickle at its new angle. "Ahh!" Nick shouted in surprise, scuttling backwards again. Takeo was still frozen in place. "What the hell!" Nick glanced down. The blood was smearing through chalk lines on the ground; he recognized these symbols. It was the same symbol, albeit larger, as the one he'd helped Takeo draw on the floor in his bedroom. "What the hell is going on, Takeo!"

Takeo shook his head, finally. "It worked," he said again.

"What worked, where the hell are we?" Nick scrambled over to Takeo and grabbed his uniform jacket, hoisting him to his feet. "WHAT worked?"

Takeo looked at Nick finally. "The, the transmutation circle," Takeo said finally, wearily. "That you helped me draw. Remember that blood I put around the outer circle?"

"Yeah?" Nick said. Takeo had been excited about the vial of dragon's blood he had gotten from the antiquities dealer. Nick was certain it was just cow blood, but hey who was he to crush a guy's dreams?

"It interacted with your blood, Nick," Takeo said dully. "We opened the Gate."

Nick released Takeo and Takeo stood wobbly for a second before sinking back onto his knees. He looked around, trying to sort all this out. "Are you saying we went through the Gate?"

"I think so," Takeo said.

"You THINK so? Well, open it again! I didn't want anything to do with your fucking fantasies, I just owed you one, and-" Nick opened his hands and closed them, trying to control his breathing. "We just can't open the Gate again, can we."

"Not without the dragon's blood, or another suitable sacrifice." Takeo was coming back to himself, slowly.

"Why didn't it take anything from us, then, if we went through it?" Nick threw out his arms. "I'm whole, I'm pretty sure I'm not missing any of my organs or limbs. What about you, or did it just suck out your brain?"

Takeo glared at Nick and got back up on his feet. "I'm whole," he said, patting himself and brushing chalk off of his trousers. "Maybe it has to do with that poor fool over there." He nodded to the dead body. "This is a human transmutation circle, maybe our transmutations synced through the Gate and that pulled us through and took him as payment for our passage."

"Great," Nick said. He crouched beside the body and closed its eyes, shuddering at the touch. "So we're responsible for his death."

"No," a voice said from the doorway. "He's responsible for his own death." Both Nick and Takeo turned and glanced to the doorway in alarm, as a man in a blue uniform descended. He frowned as he took in the scene before him. "But I am curious as to where you've been, _Fullmetal_."

Nick swallowed hard. "Oh, shit."


End file.
